Columbus school district must pay audit bill

Only district in state to pay part of data-rigging probe

Columbus school attendance scandal

Columbus City Schools employees -- and perhaps others in schools throughout the state -- are accused of falsifying students' records to improve their schools' standing on state report cards. Read the complete series.

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The cost to Columbus City Schools for being investigated for data-rigging continued to grow this
week: The district has become the only one in a statewide probe that will have to pay for part of
the state auditor’s investigation.

State Auditor Dave Yost sent a letter to Superintendent Gene Harris on Monday, saying that
information uncovered during the statewide probe into the accuracy of school-district academic
ratings “requires us to more fully investigate certain matters specific to the Columbus City School
District.”

The letter further said: “The Ohio Revised Code permits the Auditor of State to charge for the
audit services and as such we will charge the district going forward.”

The district will be provided a cost estimate as the scope and staffing of the newly designated “
special audit” are developed.

Harris said yesterday that she doesn’t know more than what’s in the letter, including what the
cost will be. District Treasurer Penny Rucker said no money is budgeted for the state audit.

“I don’t have anything,” Rucker said after a school-board meeting last night. “I’ll have to dig
deep.”

Yost’s office said last month that there is a “strong likelihood” that some Columbus district
officials will be referred to prosecutors for crimes uncovered during the ongoing student-data
probe.
The Dispatch has reported that the FBI also is investigating.

Yost spokeswoman Carrie Bartunek could provide no estimate yesterday on what the bill would be,
but said the rate is $41 per hour, per investigator. The meter started running last week, Bartunek
said.

“It’s hard to calculate because we don’t know how many hours will go into it,” she said.

So far, the district has spent or allocated to spend $275,000 on a private law firm to advise it
and investigate the data-rigging allegations for the school board. The district hasn’t ruled out
that the bill for lawyer Robert “Buzz” Trafford of Porter Wright could go much higher.

In other district business yesterday:

• The district sold its closed Northwest Career Center property near Don Scott Field on the
Northwest Side for $3 million to Wills Creek Capital Management.

The sale is contingent on the firm being able to rezone a portion of the site, at 2960 Cranston
Dr., to commercial use. The site houses the district’s former vocational center and is zoned for
apartments. The building has been vacant since 2010, when the district consolidated and centralized
its career centers Downtown.

James D. Schrim III, president of Wills Creek, said he hopes to save and reuse part of the
70,500-square-foot building.

• The district sold the 26,000-square-foot Wayne Elementary School on the Hilltop for $50,000 to
the Brian Muha Memorial Foundation, which plans a $1 million renovation leading to operation of a
food pantry and after-school program on the site.